


Pandora

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Toward the Terra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:20:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora

_I'm not so good with the books, but it's a box you're not supposed to open, right?_

Nobody said that, because it's assumed that for everyone Pandora's box is the same concept. The same mainframe and hardware, the structure that contains all the evils in the world and once opened they all fly out. And Jomy remembers that the last piece inside the box is Hope and that they have to open their caged fingers to let it go as well. But in some versions of the myth the last piece of the box, the one that Pandora catches in her hand and throws back inside, is man's ability to see his own downfall.

## And Years Earlier:

It's not quite what I assumed. Keith was saying something like that to Sam. They were ill prepared, he mentioned, shoulders slowly relaxing as he talked. Sam nodded, in his own way, hunched over the toy from his childhood. Keith didn't look at him, just leaned forward with an expression that had caused men to call him a machine, a weapon, the will of Mother (which was not a compliment, as the only will of a machine is a program, and even the program had to be written by someone else); Keith has a closed expression. Sam says that he would like a bicycle. The kind with the brakes on the handles, one that can go off the sidewalk and into the grass. 

In his way, Keith has become accustomed to this version of Sam. He much preferred the Sam in his memory who understand what ranks were, what idiots were, who Swena and himself were. It was not that he wished to pick out which pieces of Sam were best (Keith had learned that humans were so very bad at dividing themselves up internally, it was messy and resulted in deficiencies) but it was difficult to appreciate a friend who was forever a child. People grew up around the same rate for a reason, not because their age was needed to understand adult concepts but because human attachments (which, even Mother Eliza had admitted) are important. Useful, in a way.

They will trust your competency.

## Sometime In Between:

Soldiers, Jona Matsuka knows, are people with strangled hearts. They hold them tightly to their chest, daring not let them go for fear of pain or death. They can keep such rigid expressions while their hearts are crying out. Sometimes he listens to them, leaning against a door, a wall, wrapping his arms around himself where no one can see him feel compassion he has no right to eavesdrop on. Mu are monsters, he has heard. He has felt someone else's fear, woken from someone else's nightmare. If they knew I was a ...

Keith Anyan knows. Matsuka doesn't know what to do with the man who has the heart of steel. Keith is terrifying in his ability to disconnect from his own heart, to stand next to it and order for friendly fire, to order death, to _request_ surrenders and obedience. And Matsuka stands behind him, wanting to clench his hands into fists or wanting to touch the back of Keith's neck and feel everything. He wonders if he would be overwhelmed by the intensity that Keith embodies, or if he would cry because there would be nothing more than a vacuum. Keith can't be empty, he tells himself, but sometimes it is hard to believe. He does not stand close to Serge, he cowers on occasion, he earns the withering looks the others give him. 

Rage, sorrow, joy. He has never seen Keith express any of those. Murdock, who is a fine soldier if not a man who strays towards ego and amorality, shows all three when appropriate. Serge, who keeps a closer reign on his heart than his mouth, expresses himself. Even the Mother has a kind smile which Matsuka always felt was a mix of happiness and sadness.

Will you. Will I. Will you feel.

What else will you do for me?

## Closer to the Beginning:

The human race is one that evolved. Primates needed to learn to use tools, their brains increased in efficiency and size. They needed to stand upright, their spine and bones lengthened, changed. The tendons in their ankles and toes grew, stretched, became capable of new motion and lost the ability to hold onto trees. Humanity reacts to challenge, because living things want to live. Living is so desperate; Keith has never understood desperation. He is simply _good_ at what he does. He does not think of the term perfection, yet, because it is a construct of the epitome. It is the idea that people place close to divine, and to worship God is to disbelieve in logic.

Seki Rei Shiroe introduces the idea of desperation to Keith. He is wild, chaotic, he doesn't obey orders. He is the anomaly within the system, the one that slipped through the cracks. But when he stands in front of Keith, bares everything including a cocky smile that cuts in both directions, Keith thinks that there might be some sort of answer to give him. Shiroe challenges, because he exists. He is an existence that should not be allowed to continue his own way. He is a disruption.

But Keith answers the challenge. 

And later he understands the feeling of necessity. Keith is introduced to emotions that feel like breathing water or a gravity that overwhelms the body. He does something he does not want to do, but something that is right.

## Pandora's Box:

They will kill each other, just as he has killed Jomy Marquis Shin and just how Jomy Marquis Shin has killed him. They will stand together or stand opposing. Humanity is foolish. Greedy. Destructive in nature. The only difference between Mu and 'human' is a handful of acids. They are more similar than not. Keith knows all these things. He understands why the Mu have to be eliminated, why evolution is occurring. He understands desperation and survival.

Tony, the Mu who killed Matsuka, has left.

Jomy has also gone.

Keith thinks about asking a rhetorical question to the broken Grandmother; are we hope? The sound of destruction reminds him of running water.


End file.
